that the proposal we havefrommitchmcconnelthismorning is to avoid a debt ceiling battle that cost our economy billions of $s. he came up with the requested in the first place. enge that's good, to give the president authority to raise the debt. so i think if what we need to do is look at his proposal. i just got it from my staff. we're going to have some meetings with the white house. we're reviewing it. it shouldn't be that hard, from what i know about it now, it's comparable to what we had the last time. but my question, i vnd had a chance to speak to our republican friend, mitch mcconnel, about whether he's going to filibuster his own idea or if we have to have an up -- if we can have an up or town vote. but it's a way to get the country back on the path to fiscal common sense. i would hope the house of representatives would look closely at what's going on with senators coming out saying, please, mr. speaker, do something about protecting the middle class, and we have all kinds of house members that have done the same. we have one house member who said he's thinking -- a republican house m

-- i dostandmitchmcconnellcameover to the republicans and told them not to support the disclose act. everybody has to say except the people have to hide behind what they call public interest. disclose -- amend the constitution, reform campaign finance -- take it all the way down and in force. in force the law. -- enforce the lot. one of them is one we would like to introduce -- they have been part of putting this approach together. it is that we will have a federal law -- this is something we can do in terms of elections. people should have the opportunity to vote -- it would encourage early voting and vote by mail so that the voting would not be suppressed by limiting the number of machines and number of hours and days. we think that would have an impact on policy. and more people who can vote. --t comes back to the abc's american made, buil the infrastructured, cut taxes on the middle-class come and at the dd the d -- the dare. >> there is no house because the republicans have left town -- what is your response? >> i did reference it. i thank you for bringing it up again. why

-span.org. 8:00 eastern on c-span, negotiations on the fiscal cliff. we'll hear from harry reidandmitchmcconnell.c-span3, the impact of hurricnae ane sandy. a bipartisan group of senators spoke to reporters today about the civil war in syria and the potential use of force against the regime of bashar al-assad. >> good afternoon. i'm here with my colleagues from the senate, senator lieberman, senator gramm. -- graham. we are deeply disturbed by reports that bashar al-assad may have lionized -- weaponized some of his stores of chemical and biological agents and prepare them for use in aerial bombs. these reports also suggest that his forces are awaiting orders to use these weapons. if true, these reports may mean that the united states and our allies are facing the prospect of an eminent use of weapons of mass destruction and syria, and this may be the last warning we get. time for talking about what to do may now be coming to a close, and we may instead be left with an awful and it's very difficult decision. whether to continue on the sidelines and hope that a man who has slaughtered n